


Normality is a Bit Overrated When You Have a Sonic Screwdriver

by thistidalwave



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:24:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amelia Pond was never really a normal child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normality is a Bit Overrated When You Have a Sonic Screwdriver

Amelia Pond was never really a normal child. Everyone always chalked up her strange tendencies to the fact that her parents had died, the poor dear, but the truth was that Amelia couldn’t even remember having parents. She was smart enough to know that she must have had parents, of course, everyone did, but she just didn’t remember them. Nothing about bedtime stories, nothing about her parents getting angry at her... just nothing.

And while it certainly was a bit of a damper that she only had her boring aunt to live with, Amelia was just straight up odd, parents or no parents.

That was why, the day—or night, rather—that Amelia was kneeling next to her bed, asking if maybe Santa could send her someone to fix the crack in her wall, she wasn’t really all that bothered that a mad man with a blue box fell into her garden.

 _Ask and ye shall receive_ , right?

The Doctor wasn’t exactly what she’d meant when she’d asked for someone to come, but she figured he was the best Santa could do. In the years to come, she would glorify the Doctor in her mind to the point where there was no way Santa could have done any better even if he’d tried.

The Doctor was perfect, even if he did have some rather strange tendencies. In fact, the strange tendencies were probably what made him so perfect.

Amelia also rather liked that he was honest with her. Everyone had always lied to her—they thought she didn’t notice that they were bending the truth so it was ‘suitable’ for her young ears, but she did. She hadn’t believed her aunt when she’d been told the crack in her wall was nothing, but when the Doctor looked at her and said that everything was going to be all right, even though he obviously didn’t believe it himself, she believed him.

She also believed him when he’d said he’d be back in five minutes.

Truth of it was, five minutes was destined to turn into twelve years, and Amelia got quite the chewing out when her aunt discovered her sleeping on her suitcase in the garden the next morning.

“What on Earth were you waiting _for_?” she was asked repeatedly.

Amelia wasn’t sure how to answer that one. She had the feeling that what she was waiting for wasn’t exactly on Earth anymore, but she had no way to explain that.

When she tried, her aunt decided that not having any parents must be taking its toll on her, and sent her to psychiatrist number one.

\---

The most unfair thing in the universe, according to Rory Williams, was that even though he’d technically met Amy first, she cared more about the Doctor than about him. Even though he was the one who stuck around day after day, dealing with Amy’s strangeness (not that he minded, she really wouldn’t be Amy if she were normal) while this so-called Doctor was nowhere to be found, she still thought more about him than about Rory.

Still, though, Rory figured he was a pretty lucky bloke to have someone like Amy in his life. Life would be right boring without her, that was for sure.

It was really by chance that he’d met Amy, back when she was still Amelia. His mum had insisted that he go over and introduce himself to the new girl so that she’d have a friend at school. He’d been tempted to point out that she’d likely be better off having no friends than having him as a friend, but hadn’t bothered to make the effort. Instead, he trudged over to her house and knocked on the front door.

Her aunt answered and, without bothering to say anything to Rory, called over her shoulder for Amy to come downstairs.

They didn’t talk for very long, what with Amy’s aunt freaking out about being late for something or other only a minute after Amy appeared in the doorframe, and Rory has no idea what they said, exactly, but he remembers really liking Amy for some reason—he isn’t sure if it was the decidedly Scottish accent or something she said, but he liked her.

The next time they spoke was about a week later, on the first day of school. Amy had pulled Rory aside during lunch and told him all about the Doctor, absolutely sure he would believe her even though no one else did.

Amy had always liked Rory—unlike him, she knew it was because of his facial expression (sort of half confused, half interested) when he’d first shown up on her doorstep. The problem was that meeting Rory had been a bit outdone by meeting the Doctor.

The funny thing was that even though she was _so sure_ Rory would believe her, he didn’t. Not entirely, anyway. A man in tattered clothes climbing soaking wet out of a blue box in the middle of the night? To a kid like Rory, the kind of kid that was a bit too mature for his age, a bit too grown up to really believe in fairy tales anymore, that sort of thing just couldn’t happen.

But because he liked Amy and he was also the kind of kid that’s too smart for his own good, he pretended he was with her one hundred percent on the subject of the Doctor being real.

He realised what a good idea that had been later, after she’d told him about biting her psychiatrist because he’d said the Doctor wasn’t real.

That particular incident led to psychiatrist number two.

\---

The one thing Amy could never really wrap her head around was why he hadn’t come back. Sometimes, when she was particularly distracted by life, she would think that the only reason why someone as perfect as the Doctor wouldn’t come back was that he wasn’t real.

When she caught herself thinking that, she was pretty darn tempted to bite herself. She never did, though. The more rational side of her was always quick to point out that harming oneself was a pretty clear sign of a cry for help to most people, and if there was one thing Amy did _not_ need, it was any more attempts at ‘help’.

Sometimes Amy thought that the only reason she kept Rory around was that he never tried to help her. At least, he never did so outright, and Amy was pretty good at filtering out the stuff she didn’t want to care about. But Amy also knew that she kept Rory around for more reasons than that. It especially occurred to her one afternoon in the middle of the summer, around the time they were twelve, when most kids were playing outside, but she and Rory were sitting in her room, him perched in her desk chair, her sitting on the bed, both of them taping together pieces of paper to form objects that only existed in Amy’s memory.

She stuck the last bit of Scotch tape on the edge of the blue box and set it next to the figure of the Raggedy Doctor, tossing the old one into the bin. Amy looked over at Rory, who was intent upon the grey paper in his hands, his blonde hair falling into his eyes. Only a moment later, he held up the paper for her to examine.

“Perfect,” she declared of the model sonic screwdriver. “Much better than the last one.”

Rory grinned. “It’s too bad it’s not real,” he said, looking almost forlornly at the paper.

“It is real,” Amy said, giving Rory a look.

“No, no,” he said quickly, backtracking. “I know it is. I just meant that I wish I had a real sonic screwdriver.”

Amy looked at the set of models on her desk and sighed. Rory could practically read her thoughts—he knew she was wishing she had a real Doctor.

“Why do you bother?” she asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Rory was genuinely confused by the question.

“I mean, why do you bother with me? Everyone else just thinks I’m mad. Why don’t you?”

Rory thought about that for a moment. He wasn’t sure exactly what would be the right answer to that, a situation he wasn’t really used to being in. He normally knew the right answer to every question, in school or not. “I do think you’re mad,” he blurted out.

Amy raised her eyebrows. That had evidently _not_ been the right answer.

“It’s just, well, I mean...” he stammered, struggling to form a proper sentence. “Well, uh, normality is a bit overrated when you have a sonic screwdriver, don’t you think?” He waved the grey paper in Amy’s general direction and made the buzzing sound he had perfected since meeting Amy.

She laughed. “A bit tinnier,” she advised.

Rory adjusted the noise.

Maybe he wasn’t quite perfect, but Amy realised that she would only trade him for one person. And that was a pretty high honour coming from her.

“Come on,” she said, hopping off the bed. “Let’s see if my aunt made any more of those cookies.”

Rory followed her down the stairs.

\---

Even though she’d thought she’d had a pretty big revelation that one afternoon, it really didn’t compare to anything she realised later. Of course, that didn’t happen until after the Doctor came back for the second time.

Before that, before even the first time, Amy and Rory became just that—Amy and Rory. Rory and Amy. That was how they identified, not to themselves, but to the rest of the world.

To them, they were two separate entities, even if they did spend a lot of time together. Even though they ended up dating (a label Amy had placed on their relationship that both scared and made Rory insanely happy as well as causing her second psychiatrist to point out that it was good she was getting into relationships with real people, earning him a bite and her a third psychiatrist), they were still different people. So many people defined themselves by others, but not Amy Pond.

Rory Williams was a bit different, but if Amy was good at blocking out the stuff she didn’t want to care about, Rory was even better.

The third psychiatrist barely lasted a day before she claimed that she couldn’t deal with Amy. She ditched the fourth psychiatrist the minute she turned eighteen. The poor fellow almost got to deal with Pond for a lengthy amount of time without being bitten, but just as she was leaving, he deigned to mention that he hoped this growing up thing meant she was leaving silly childhood fantasies behind.

She was really old enough to know better, but she bit him right smack dab on the hand that was holding the door open for her anyway. You could make an excuse for anything you did while in a psychiatrist’s office, kind of like how you could be as odd as you wanted when you didn’t have any parents.

Even if your life is full of problems, not every moment is focussed on them. There are always those times when you temporarily forget everything bad and just have fun. A lot of those times happened for both Rory and Amy when they were together. While neither would say they’d been saved by the other, it was probably not too much of a stretch to say so if you wanted to.

Rory and Amy had the best of times together. It was just a shame that at the sight of the Doctor, Amy forgot about all of that.

\---

Amy thought there was a raving lunatic in her house. And maybe there was. It just so happened that she _knew_ the raving lunatic that had been yelling about something or other when she’d bravely hit him with the cricket bat.

Her only course of action after realising who it was was to tie him up good so that he couldn’t get away from her again.

And then put on her police Kissogram outfit to scare him in case he was just a really good look-a-like.

Of course, he just had to go be oblivious and mutter something about the engines and he ‘supposed he must have been a bit late’ and she kind of wanted to go get the cricket bat so she could bash him over the head again.

But she figured a policewoman wouldn’t do something like that, so she did the next best thing.

She lied.

Of course, him being the Doctor, bloody brilliant man she knew him to be, he figured that out soon enough (although admittedly after he’d pointed out an extra room with a creepy _thing_ in it in her house).

So they had a good long row with shouting and bondage and Amy decided that this man was definitely not the Doctor and then he gave her an apple and told her to believe for twenty minutes and Amy decided that this man was definitely the Doctor.

And then he saved the world and disappeared again. The only thing he left Amy with was the belief of everyone who’d always thought her insane. And there was still a crack in her wall. The Doctor was rubbish at doing the job he was actually meant to do.

\---

She was sick of the Doctor. She was sick of his constant presence in her thoughts. She was sick of his tattered suit and tie; alternatively, she was sick of his immaculate stolen tweed and bow tie. She was sick of him lying and saying he would be back in five minutes. She was sick of telling herself that he _would_ come back, even if it took another twelve years. She was sick of telling herself that she could wait that long.

And so she proposed to Rory. Because she couldn’t wait any longer for something that some people still insisted she’d made up (she tried not to bite them, but honestly, how was she to help it if she tripped and fell with her mouth open and teeth bared?). And Rory was Rory and had said yes and she’d been happy about it.

Of course, that was when he decided to show up, on the night before her wedding of all the times. And he was all apologies and _‘come see the stars, Amelia Pond’_ and she was goo before her Doctor, pure goo. And so she _almost_ forgot all about Rory and followed the Doctor.

It was a time machine. It could be the night before her wedding for as long as she wanted it to be the night before her wedding.

\---

In the end, Amy came to realise that it wasn’t really a choice. She needed Rory Williams to survive, that was for sure, but that didn’t mean giving up her Doctor. It just meant that her boys needed to learn how to share nicely, like most preschoolers do. Did Time Lords go to preschool? If they did, it wasn’t a very good sort of preschool. And Rory had probably skipped to first year for being precocious. Seemed like Amy was the only one who’d had any proper sort of childhood. She’d even had parents nowadays—parents that had read her bedtime stories and yelled at her when she did something out of line.

But Amelia Pond _was_ still odd. Parents or no parents. Stars or no stars.

And at least he’d finally gotten rid of the stupid crack like he was supposed to.


End file.
